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If you are really serious about filmmaking, you NEED to get a 35mm lens adapter for your crappy consumer camcorder. Granted, the device will cost hundreds of dollars to make or thousands to buy and it will make your camcorder a magnitude more complex to use, but your video will magically and automatically look JUST LIKE FILM, as long as you remember to shoot in 24p mode, of course.
OK, that is at best a myth and at worst a lie. Still, selective focus control is a highly desireable artistic device in both filmmaking and photography. Granted, there have always been hacks like Ansel Adams who intentionally liked to keep everything in the shot in sharp focus, but his snapshots have always been considered trivial and unimportant anyhow.
Small consumer camcorders have small apertures and an inherently deep depth of field that tends to keep everything in focus. Previously, in the "Depth of Field Demystified" segment, I explained exactly how this works. Executive Summary? To exploit selective focus control, you need to get your subject as far away from your background as possible and then either (1) Zoom in or (2) get the camera nice and close to the subject.
35mm cameras, film - and lenses - have potentially much shallower depths of field and greater creative and artistic control over focus than most camcorders. Unfortunately, you can't just add an adapter to the front of your camcorder and screw your 35mm lens into the front of it. This simply will not work.
Instead, what we can do is project an image from our 35mm camera's lens onto a ground glass screen set - with millimeter precision - exactly at the focal plane of the lens. This increases the size of our imaging plane from 1/6" inch camcorder CCD to 35mm film, which will give us the Depth of Field flexibility we are looking for. The projected image will be upsided down, but that's easy enough to deal with in post, even if it makes shooting a pain in the ass.
Now all we need to do is shoot the projected image with our camcorder. We'll mount the focus screen in an adapter tube and screw that onto the front of our camcorder - again, with very precise positioning. Most cameras will require additional adapter rings and some cameras might also require an additional macro lens, so the camcorder can focus on a screen positioned that close.
This extreme closeup creates another problem, however, as microscopic imperfections and motes of dust on the focus screen will be plainly and distractingly visible when magnified like this. The fix for this is to either vibrate the focus screen or rotate it in such a way that the imperfections are blurred and hidden, which means we need of some type of motor, housing and a power supply for the adapter. As you might have guessed by now, you are definitely taking a quality hit by shooting a semi-transparent vibrating piece of glass, instead of just shooting through a lens.
And now our 35mm lens adapter camcorder is complete ... and completely unbalanced, awkward and ungainly. The entire contraption needs to be mounted on a sturdy tripod - this one would never work - and the lens needs to be supported by some sort of rail system. So now we have an expensive, precisely machined, mechanically complex 35mm lens adapter on the front of our camera that will degrade the objective technical clarity of your image and makes shooting an entire magnitude more difficult.
That being said - and despite the sarcastic tone of my introduction - when used correctly, 35mm lens adapters do produce some astonishingly gorgeous images from small format camcorders. Just go to Vimeo.com and search for "35mm adapter" to find tons of examples, not to mention feature films like "28 Days Later" that used the adapters with cinematic prime lenses. Artistically and creatively, a 35mm lens adapter is a beautiful, brilliant device, as long as you know what you are getting into.
There are adapters that you can buy online: Letus adapters, for example, start at about $1,000 - just for the adapter - the actual 35mm lens is not included. Redrock Micro has a complete packages with lens support rail systems included for about $1,800 - again, 35mm lens not included. Of course, you could build one yourself, and there are literally dozens of tutorials and complete plans available on line. Being a bit of a gear slut myself and a big fan of DIY guerilla filmmaking, this looks like a really fun weekend project that'll probably come in at under $100. Just don't tell my girlfriend I've "borrowed" her camera.
All kidding aside, please, please keep in mind that a 35mm lens adapter and shooting in 24p film mode for that matter will NOT make your video look like a Hollywood film. There are no magical devices that can do that, well, except maybe a 16mm Russian film camera that you can get on ebay for $400. Even in the best, most cinematic of Hollywood movies, Depth of Field and rack focus is not something that gets used all the time. And, there are certainly styles, shows and shots that would gain nothing by using a 35mm lens adapter.
OK, let's wrap this up with two FREE and EASY ways to get the 35mm shallow depth of field look with your current camera. The first method is to separate your subject from the background by as far as you can and then either zoom in or get the camera really close to the subject. More on this in the Depth of Field Demystified segment. The other way is to fake it in post. Just create a mask around your subject and throw a defocus filter on the background. It's a tad more complex than than and drawing the mask frame-by-frame is incredibly tedious AND it'll only work on certain shots AND it looks completely fake and crappy if you don't spend time on it, but, then again, it is a FREE artistic option. And whether you spend $2,000 on a commercial 35mm lens adapter, build one yourself or just practice free techniques with your current camera, artistic options are always great to have!
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